Hamsa

The Hamsa or Hand of Fatima is a palm shapes amulet popular in different cultures, it's a recognised symbol of protection. In Islam it's known as the hand of Fatima, Christians call it the hand of Mary and Jews the hand of Miriam. Often the symbol has an eye in the middle of it or somewhere on it to ward off the evil eye and "blind the aggressor".

It's become quite an iconic symbol and in modern day culture; people often wear it as a adornment or adorn their homes with the symbol. 

What I like about the symbol is how it spans across different cultures, and is even a popular in western culture. I like the idea of the intermingling of different cultures, how different cultures share different views/beliefs/ideas and how this can be reflected in design. 

These experiments are my own drawn Hamsa symbols. The background is emulsion paint and the hamsas are drawn on tracing paper, with different coloured felt tips. The left hand design is inspired from some of the henna designs I have looked at and hamsas that I have researched. The second design I tried to encorpate the fish symbols because when looked at Hamsa designs I saw a lot of them had fish. From researching online I found out that the fish is symbolic of good look. The right hand hasma I directly traced from henna designs I had already drawn. I used the henna designs because I felt that there was simlaraties between the imagery on Hamsas and the imagery thats used in Henna and Mendi designs.